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Shaun McCamley to launch new Asian-facing blockchain social gaming platform

Former President of The Grand Ho Tram Strip, Shaun McCamley, is set to launch a new social gaming platform in Vietnam using blockchain technology.

RubieCon, a company established by McCamley and comprising a team of both casino-industry veterans and blockchain experts, is developing the platform which will enable the bidirectional exchange of private and base tokens.

The platform will be Asian-facing with games designed to attract the rapidly expanding Asian market, according to RubieCon’s marketing partner HOGO.

“Up until now, platforms have struggled to successfully implement new technology into a social gaming platform that proves attractive to the Asian consumer base,” said McCamley. “Our team’s expertise in gaming coupled with HOGO’s ability to reach our target consumers here in Asia will ensure the platform is a success.”

HOGO will oversee initial brand launch operations with a focus on investor education and development for the platform.

“RubieCon is a new and innovative idea in the social casino and gaming arena,” said Managing Partner of HOGO, Chris Wieners. “I’m excited about the prospects it brings and our team looks forward to working closely with Shaun and his team of gaming and technology experts in the launch of this new platform.”

A new social games platform being launched by Asian industry veteran Shaun McCamley will focus on unique localized content and CRM services targeting players within Asian markets.

Releasing details of the platform, named RubieCon, on Thursday, McCamley noted the absence of truly localized games in the market and said that RubieCon aims to address that problem when it launches in January 2019.

“This is much more than simply adjusting the look and feel of existing games,” he said. “Too often in the digital gaming space, we see developers simply swapping out symbols, colors and other imagery in an attempt to localize Western games into the Asian markets. It’s so much more than that.

“To effectively attract customers, unique games need to be added and rules need to be adjusted to fit the player style of each local market. Colors, symbols and other aesthetics, while important, are not the only criteria this market demands. Asian players are underserved and RubieCon will fill this void.”

McCamley cites several popular Vietnamese card games that are largely unheard of outside the country, such as “Tien Lien”, “Dap Hu” and “Xoc Dia”.

In addition to the games offered by the platform, RubieCon will build an independent foundation managed platform for game designers, developers, advertisers and players to launch and promote their games. Through the platform’s own exchanges, users can utilize a coin-based cryptocurrency to mitigate issues brought by payment gateways, money transfers and cross-border payments.

RubieCon also announced that it has on-boarded additional executive talent, including new CTO Michael Van Etteryk, who has a background in blockchain technology and social gaming platform development.

Ho Chi Minh City, September 27, 2018 (Thursday): HOGO has been selected as the marketing agency of record for RubieCon, a soon to be based Singapore firm focused on launching a social casino platform that will also integrate BlockChain technologies enabling the bi-directional exchange of private and base tokens.

Targeting the booming Asian markets, RubieCon is the brainchild of veteran casino and gaming operator Shaun McCamley. With a team consisting of both casino-industry and BlockChain experts, RubieCon aims to disrupt the space by offering a robust technology solution matched with games designed to attract the Asian market base.

Shaun McCamley, CEO of RubieCon, stated: “We are excited to sign HOGO as our agency of record for this new and exciting next step in social gaming. Up until now, platforms have struggled to successfully implement new technology into the social gaming platform that proves attractive to the Asian consumer base. Our team’s expertise in gaming coupled with HOGO’s ability to reach our target consumers here in Asia will ensure the platform is a success.”

Chris Wieners, Managing Partner of HOGO stated: “RubieCon is a new and innovative idea in the social casino and gaming arena. I’m excited about the prospects it brings and our team looks forward to working closely with Shaun and his team of gaming and technology experts in the launch of this new platform.

HOGO will oversee all initial brand launch operations with a focus on investor education and development for the platform. Future work will include all media, advertising and commercial platform promotions.

About RubieCon
RubieCon is a B2C2B free-play Asia-focused social casino gaming platform targeting new generations of Asian players. RubieCon aims to create an independent foundation, a managed platform that will remain open and free to all game publishers, advertisers, marketers and players. Disruptive and smart, RubieCon rings in a new era of social gaming into an already hungry and underserved market.

Shaun McCamley: Take a second look on social games

In this interview with CalvinAyre.com’s Stephanie Raquel, Shaun McCamley of Global Market Advisors explains how gambling operators could capitalize on the popularity of social games.

No one can deny the popularity of mobile phones worldwide. In fact, analysts are predicting that the number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to hit the 5 billion mark by 2019.

Fueling the growth of mobile phones in the world is the increasing popularity of smartphones, which Statista predict to grow by one billion in five years. To give a clearer picture, the research firm projects the number of smartphone users in the world to reach 2.6 billion by 2019.

With this number, Shaun McCamley of Global Market Advisors believes that gaming operators should quickly pounce on the opportunity to make incremental revenues from social games.

The good thing about social games, according to McCamley, is the fact that social game players don’t care if they are going to win prizes.

“Some of the big guys really missed out on online poker in the early days and I’m sure they regretted that decision. My advice, don’t hang around. Take a second look on social game,” McCamley told CalvinAyre.com. “People didn’t realize how much money can be made from social games. I guess, since poker was obviously something you could see in front of you, because people gamble and you know, you could see the table and you can play against one another, social games now are not free because people actually pay good money to buy more credits while they are playing.”

McCamley said there are people who spend thousands of dollars a month on social games even if they know they will not gain anything from playing it. Most social game players, according to McCamley, only want to be entertained.

“If gaming operators or if property owners are looking for something they can use as a good incremental revenue, they may not want to miss the boat on that,” he pointed out. “The games are very addictive, and some people just don’t want to wait for the time to come around to get their free credits. So some people are spending thousands of dollars a month, [when] there is no win, there is no prize, there’s nothing for them to cash out. They don’t win a teddy bear. It is just for entertainment, by the way.”

Aside from revenues, McCamley do believe that social games are easy to brand and to promote, and also it is easy for them to encourage, and for new markets, developing new players, social games I think is quite a good way to go forward.

He, however, cautioned operators from building a platform since first, they couldn’t do it by themselves and lastly, it will take a long time to learn the right processes to build a platform.

“They cannot do it by themselves. It takes a long time to learn the right processes, to build a platform. They can’t build around platform, so they’ve really got to look around, find a platform provider that provides the games that they like, work without provider, and get the game branded and get it out there using other platform but don’t take time to learn this things,” McCamley said.

Shaun McCamley: Look at proxy betting, social games to build brand

In this interview with CalvinAyre.com’s Stephanie Raquel, Shaun McCamley of Global Market Advisors discusses how proxy betting solutions and social games can help give casino operations in Asia a chance to build additional revenue.

Asia is—at this moment—the largest gambling market, but it’s also a very difficult one to operate in due to restrictions that stem from outdated government laws. Shaun McCamley, of Global Market Advisors, said “tough times” are ahead for operators, which is why they should start looking at other offerings to build brand and bring in additional revenue.

One of these programs is proxy betting, which involves having a trusted intermediary sit at a casino VIP table who will relay real-time card info to a gambler. The gambler, usually Chinese mainland residents, would then instruct the intermediary on how much money to wager on a particular hand.

McCamley, however, was quick to point out that proxy betting shouldn’t be confused with online gambling, since the two don’t share a connection except for that fact that the gamble can see a table game at real time.

“It’s just a live feed, which goes up through your cameras and, through server-based technology, gets broadcast out to the internet,” McCamley told CalvinAyre.com. “And really all you need to do is set your proxy system up. It’s just a very, very basic web interface—that’s for the user—some very good cameras because obviously you want good, quality pictures and that really is the most expensive part of your budget is getting good cameras and getting them well-positioned on your table.”

McCamley recently set up his own “cost-effective” system in one of the casinos in Vietnam, shelling out less than $50,000, which he said he was able to make back “within 15 minutes of the gaming action.”

Another offering that casino operators should also look at is social gaming. Considered a growing trend in Asia, McCamley expects social gaming to catch the eyes of government officials soon.

“A few years ago we wouldn’t even entertain them because there was no revenue component. In some people’s view, a waste of valuable resources. Why would you waste money on a product that doesn’t make money? But that’s changed a lot now, and the social games that we see now are very casino game-oriented,” McCamley said. “There’s a lot of slot machines starter games and it is in an unregulated environment, so likely, I would think we’re going to be seeing in future government particularly around southeast Asia are going to be looking at if they should really re-visit that because of the casino style content and whether they should be looking at regulating these sorts of games. I think if I was a smart operator now I’d be looking at some help as to how they can best take that next step and consider that regulations may be coming.”